Short-term and long-term memory in early temporal lobe dysfunction.
Following medial temporal damage, mature humans are impaired in retaining new information over long delays but not short delays. The question of whether a similar dissociation occurs in children was addressed by testing children (ages 7-16) with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and controls on short- and long-term memory tasks, including a spatial delayed response task (SDR). Early-onset TLE did not affect performance on short delays on SDR, but it did impair performance at the longest delay (60 s), similar to adults with unilateral medial temporal damage. In addition, early-onset TLE affected performance on pattern recall, spatial span, and verbal span with rehearsal interference. No differences were found on story recall or on a response inhibition task.
Hershey
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Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. tammy@npg.wustl.edu
Craft
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Glauser
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Hale
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D017668:Age of Onset; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D014888:Wechsler Scales